


cut my branch down from that family tree

by altschmerzes



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Brother-Sister Relationships, Family, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Past Abuse, Platonic Cuddling, Regret, Season/Series 02, elwood davis not present but heavily discussed, heavy references to episodes 2.08 and 2.09, jack is also featured heavily in conversation but not present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 09:30:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14997923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altschmerzes/pseuds/altschmerzes
Summary: This time, Elwood Davis doesn't get his hundredth second chance.Or, the one where Riley decides after an agonizing debate to put herself first, and she and Mac have a discussion about family. Society says we owe our parents no matter how they’ve behaved. It’s hard conditioning to overcome, but it is possible.





	cut my branch down from that family tree

**Author's Note:**

> so this is a long-brewing reaction to something i had a very hard time with in season two, for like. a lot of personal reasons. if you're attached to elwood's redemption arc of sorts, give this one a miss. 
> 
> ft. several headcanons and riley and mac's sibling dynamic, as well as some thoughts on why jack behaves a little incongruently when it comes to riley and mac's fathers. 
> 
> be careful, as this is kind of a heavy one, even for me, and riley is something of an unreliable narrator here with a lot of maladaptive thought processes.

> _I closed my eyes and saw my father's sins_
> 
> _They covered me like a second skin_
> 
> _I peeled them off, and sure I bled a bit_
> 
> _But now I'm free to sink my own damn ship_
> 
> _I cut my branch down from that family tree_
> 
> _To start a fire in the living room_
> 
> _\- Radical Face, "Let The River In"_

When Riley was little, she used to daydream about her dad. She’d sit around and think about what it would be like to be one of those kids with a dad who gave gruff but loving speeches about how proud of her he was, who taught her how to play soccer or the piano.

After a while, after bouncing between here and not-here, and here was always somehow worse, Riley began daydreaming about a dad. Not _hers_ , just _a_ dad. She never gave this hypothetical father a name or a face, but she imagined his voice. It was a voice that rumbled warm when she would lay against his chest while he read to her. It was a voice that stumbled awkward over telling her how amazing she was at her high school graduation. It was a voice she hung on to, for a long time.

After a while, under fathoms of anger and petulance and ‘fool me twice shame on me’, Riley daydreamed about Jack Dalton. She thought about how he might teach her soccer or how to tile a bathroom or something, and maybe he didn’t know piano but there was a whole zippered book of classic rock CDs she wanted to hear all of someday. Maybe she even thought about her high school graduation, and about how it would feel to hold onto his arm while he walked her down the aisle.

After a while, Riley stopped daydreaming much at all.

Then one day she woke up and realized she didn’t really have to any more. Against all odds, it seemed like her life finally came together. She had a great job, a family. Jack again, for good this time, it seemed. Riley was happy. She was _happy_.

Then one day the veneer on it cracks, because Elwood is back, again, and Riley finds herself daydreaming. Again. Even as she walks towards where he sits at the picnic table, Riley daydreams about what would’ve happened if she hadn’t taken his call. If she’d told him to leave her alone forever, blocked his number and never spoke to him again.

He tells her a joke, and it feels normal, or at least normal except for the sick fist gripping her stomach, twisting it every couple of minutes. Riley sits across the park table from her father and smiles and laughs and even has a good time, when she isn’t expecting the other shoe to drop right onto the back of her neck. Then she gets up and leaves and sits in her car and the smile… It’s gone. The car sits dead and silent around her as she tries to buck up the momentum to turn the key in the ignition and drive home.

Elwood waves at her across the parking lot and the fist in Riley’s gut yanks. She starts the car and pulls out of the lot and away from the park, just picking a direction and driving without any idea which way she’s going. After several blocks, she pulls over and pulls the emergency brake up, sitting in her idling car and trying not to panic. Her breath is coming quick and short and she abruptly slams a palm against the steering wheel.

_This was a mistake_ , she thinks, pressing her other hand against her own sternum and blinking furiously. One thought of profound clarity jumps through the rush of static and her own pulse pounding in her ears. _This was a mistake, oh god, this was a mistake._

When Riley’s vision finally clears, she looks around. She’s in a neighborhood she doesn’t recognize, with houses all around her filled with people and families that have no idea there’s some stupid young woman sitting in her car outside, panicking because she got what she wanted, and it isn’t good enough. Down the street, a front door swings open and a little girl with braids goes careening down the front steps. A tall man follows her more slowly, closing the door behind him, and Riley looks away before she can start to make comparisons, to tell herself that man looks like Elwood, or maybe like Jack, or maybe sounds like that imaginary dad she’d thought about so long ago.

Pulling up her GPS and breathing slowly, Riley gets herself directions home, and tries to think calmly. She pulls back out onto the street and tells herself this is normal. Young adults who begin rebuilding relationships with estranged parents probably all freak out at first, especially when there’s a storied history of broken promises and letdowns indicating this attempt might not be any more successful than the last.

_“Turn left on LaFond Avenue in one point five miles.”_

There’s no reason to assume this tight feeling in her chest, means anything other than nerves. Perfectly normal nerves. Perfectly normal, ‘I can do this’, ‘I can be the bigger person and accept that my abusive deadbeat father has grown and worked on himself and is no longer an abusive deadbeat, probably’, ‘he’s my _dad,_ I should fix our relationship, that’s what daughters do when they get a chance to do that, right?’ nerves.

_“Turn left on LaFond Avenue.”_

This is _normal_. Riley knows this is _normal_. She can push through the nausea, the anxiety, the fear, the lingering ‘I’ve made a mistake’. All she has to do is get a good night’s sleep and take an antacid and remember the good times, the times that will make this worth it. She can have her dad back, and that’s what she wants, right?

It’ll all be better tomorrow. It’ll be better in the morning.

_“Recalculating route. Turn left on Cedar Avenue in eight hundred feet.”_

And she’s right. It is better in the morning. Not much better, but it’s better, and it keeps being better. The nausea doesn’t go away, sure. She doesn’t want to check her phone at all, ever, and her anxiety spikes every time the ringer goes off, sure. She swerves wildly in and out of feeling good about the development of Elwood's return and feeling like a dark shadow she’d finally gotten out from under had come crashing down back over everything, _sure_. But it’s better.

When she talks to Jack, explains what she’s doing and why, how he’s really changed this time, there’s a part of her that’s hoping he’ll push. It’s a big part, way bigger than the part of her that wants him to be okay with this. Riley wants Jack to look at her like she’s nuts and then explain to her that doing this will cause her more harm than it will help her. She wants him to tell her it’s okay to be selfish and awful and not care how much it would hurt Elwood to give him this chance and then take it away.

But he doesn’t. He gives what she supposes is his blessing, and a definitely bullshit agreement to stay out of it, and Riley leaves feeling disappointed, even though that had been the point of the conversation, hadn’t it? To make sure he didn’t freak out.

Maybe Jack wasn’t the one she should’ve been worried about freaking out, because all of a sudden Elwood is standing in the lobby of the Foundation and she didn’t tell him to come here. He’s just… _showed up_ , out of the blue, and Riley’s heart is hammering in her chest. She navigates the conversation on autopilot, then puts it out of her mind as thoroughly as possible, focuses on the mission.

Dinner is fine. Well, dinner is fine for five minutes, until it sinks in like it always does when she talks to Elwood that Riley is essentially having dinner with a stranger. This is a man she doesn’t know any more, if she ever did to begin with, and he doesn’t know her. The only thing connecting them over this table is shared DNA and a past. DNA makes this man family, according to laws and biology and a lifetime of social training. The past makes this man a trigger for more anxiety and remembered pain than Riley wants to shoulder, on top of the day-to-day levels she already grapples with. But she’s here and she’s agreed to this attempt at rebuilding their relationship, so that’s what she’s gotta do. Right?

That is the first time Riley thinks about backing out, telling Elwood she can’t do this and going back to her regular, pre-reappeared-disappeared-dad life. And now that she’s thought it once, that the possibility has entered her mind, she can’t stop thinking about it. It’s not the noble choice, it’s not the high road, it would hurt Elwood, a _lot_ , and still, knowing all of that, Riley can’t stop thinking about it.

A couple of days after that dinner, Riley gets up in the morning, gets in her car and starts driving. She daydreams the whole way, about going back to before. Before she agreed to talk to Elwood, before she agreed to try and make things work with him, just. Before. Riley is still daydreaming about how she could’ve hung up the phone and blocked his number and saved herself a whole world of grief when she pulls up outside of Mac and Bozer’s house.

When it was, exactly, she’d decided it was here she was driving to, Riley couldn’t say, but now that she is here, it seems like a really good idea. The possibility of pulling the plug on this attempt to fix things with her father has been pinging around in her brain for days, and if anyone can help her sort through whether or not it’s a conscionable option, whether she’d be able to live with herself if she takes it, it’s Mac.

Mac opens the door after about thirty solid seconds of rapid knocking, bewildered and a little annoyed at the persistent banging.

“What?” he’s asked, voice just this side of a snap, before he registers both her identity and her expression. “Oh- Riley? What’s going on?”

“I need to talk to you,” she blurts before she can change her mind, arms folded tightly and nails picking at the elbow of her shirt. “It’s about my dad.”

In an instant, Mac’s expression goes from confused to deeply worried. “Are you okay? What did he do?”

There’s fear there, too. He’s scared somethings happened to her. Mac is scared, because Riley showed up needing to talk about her father, and his first assumption was that Elwood had hurt her, and doesn’t that just drive home the point of the problem.

As long as Elwood is around, Mac and all of the rest of the people that make up her family now, that are so much more important in her world than her father has even the chance to be any more, they will always be waiting for the moment that Elwood hurts her. And what’s more important, Riley’s going to be waiting for that too. She’s going to spend the rest of her life with Elwood around, in any capacity, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for her father to do what he’s done a hundred times before.

“He didn’t do anything,” she says, folding her arms tighter, nails digging into her own skin. “I’m-” _I’m fine_. Well. No. Not really. “Look, can I just come in?”

With Bozer still at spy school, the house feels still and empty. Riley’s always liked it here - it always felt like a house that was alive with warmth and family, a place she felt like she could come home to. (Elwood’s never been here, as well, and right now that’s a check in the ‘pro’s column.) Maybe that’s why she’d come here now. Because it’s someplace she feels safe, has always felt safe.

Once he’s let her in, Mac sits down on the couch and waits for her to join him. The fear has left, for the most part, but the worry stays. He sits there with a frown, not saying anything, while she gets comfortable. Riley shifts around a bit, eyes flickering over the room, lighting on some abstract object for a few seconds before moving on. She looks to him when she’s run out of excuses not to and sighs.

“I don’t know what to do,” she says quietly, and Mac tilts his head a little.

“About your dad?”

Riley looks down again. There’s bound to be a hole in the sleeve of her shirt by the end of what promises to be a somewhat lengthy conversation.

“Yeah, about my dad. I don’t…” She shakes her head and props her elbow on the back of the couch, bracing her chin on her fist. “I don’t know that- that this is- I don’t know. A good idea.”

“You don’t know that _what_ is a good idea, Ri?”

Mac’s question is so concerned, voiced in such a soft tone, and Riley can’t stand it. She bolts up off the couch and paces a few feet away. Her fingers go right back to the elbow of her shirt and and she catches herself, angrily shakes her hand out, shaking her head in a slower but no less frustrated display of turmoil.

“All of it!” Her voice cracks embarrassingly, and she shakes her head for what must be the millionth time, blinking away frustrated, conflicted tears. “The park, and the dinner, and the photo album, and the phone calls. Talking to him again, seeing him, just- My _dad_. I don’t know if _any of it_ is a good idea, and I don’t know that I can do it anymore.”

Following the outburst, the room sits stone still and wordless. In the negative space left behind, Riley avoids looking at Mac. She inhales and exhales short and through her nose, trying to control the rapid pants of breath constricting her lungs and making her feel like she’s not getting enough oxygen. It gets to the point that Riley is worried she might pass out, pressing a hand over her own chest, feeling the thundering of her heartbeat under her palm. Mac calls her name quietly, and she looks up. He looks more worried than ever, but he’s keeping his distance, staying seated on the couch.

At his beckoning wave, quietly calling her back, Riley capitulates, walking back over and sitting across from him. Her hands are shaking and she balls them into fists, pressing them into her thighs to still them.

“Are you thinking about calling it off?” Mac asks the question with a light, gentle voice. He’s still keeping his distance, giving her space, from his posture sitting against the arm of the couch opposite her end, to his words, speaking without any indication of judgement or surprise.

It brings the tears back, hearing it voiced and made real, and Riley tries to admit it, to say out loud, ‘yes, I’m thinking about doing the worst, most selfish thing I have ever considered doing’. She can’t make her vocal cords co-operate, however. All that comes out of her mouth is a cracked squeak and she presses her lips together and nods her head.

“Okay,” Mac says slowly, nodding along with her. “Okay.”

What feels like several minutes passes before Riley can corral her scattered brain, her aching lungs, into forming coherent words. “I…” She shrugs, the nod turning into a side to side twist, eyes cutting swaths through the room. “I should _never_ have agreed to talk to him, I never should’ve met up with him, I _never_ should’ve- But I did. I did! And I can’t just walk that back, I don’t have a time machine.”

Indicating his continued attention with a short hum, Mac doesn’t say anything, waiting for her to continue.

“It’s done.” Riley lifts her arms a little, dropping them sharply, a subdued imitation of flinging her hands in the air. “I _shouldn’t’ve_ but I _did_ and it’s _done_.”

“It’s not done, Riley,” Mac says, finally interjecting his opinion. Frankly, Riley is relieved. She’d gotten a little tired of monologuing, beginning to think she’d made _another_ mistake in coming over here, making this Mac’s problem too. “Okay, let’s take a step back. Do you know why you agreed to see him again in the first place?”

“He’s changed.” Even as she says it, it sounds like a weak excuse, like she doesn’t even believe it herself. Riley snorts. “I told Jack he’d changed, when I told him about this, I was pretty insistent, but I think it was myself I was trying to convince. Y’know. That Elwood’s changed.”

“And has he? I mean, do you think he has? _Really_ changed?” It’s a reasonable question to ask at this point, and it hits home hard.

The instinctual response Riley almost gives switches wildly from ‘yes’ to ‘no’ and back to ‘yes’. It careens a couple more times between them, before she settles on not giving either. It’s not a satisfying answer, but she’s come to grasp that nothing about this is satisfying. There is no good option, only the one she can live with.

“That’s the thing.” It sounds whiny. Riley knows this sounds whiny, but there’s no other way to say it. “He seems like he has, but I don’t know if it’s worth it to have to keep second guessing that, wondering if it’s gonna stick, when all I’m getting out of this is the feeling that I’m being a good daughter.” The words ‘getting out of this’ leave an acid taste in Riley’s throat but she lets them rest there, unqualified, because she may as well be honest.

“Have you talked to Jack about this?” Mac’s question comes rather out of left field, and she blinks at him. Somehow, it’s a surprise to hear it. “I mean, since the pizza place, when you told him to stay out of it and he obviously didn’t listen.”

“You know about that?” Again, somehow a surprise, even though it really shouldn’t be. She’s not mad, just a little taken aback.

“Yeah, Jack told me. I overheard some stuff, I knew your dad was back around, I asked him about it.” Mac cringes a little. He looks guilty. “Sorry about that.”

“No, it’s okay,” Riley brushes off. “It’s fine. No, I haven’t talked to Jack, I can’t, not after what he said when I told him, when I _insisted_ to him that I was sure I wanted to try again with Elwood.”

Mac’s brow furrows in a deeper frown. “What did he say?”

“He told me it was awesome,” she says, and tries not to be bitter about saying it. It hadn’t sounded sincere by a mile, and Riley knows she’d kind of backed him into a corner of ‘be supportive or don’t participate in this conversation at all’, but she still wishes he’d said something else. “That I was trying, with Elwood. And that I should do it, that I only have one father, and I mean, he’s right, isn’t he? And how could I look Jack in the eye after all that and say y’know what, I changed my mind, I want to pull a redo and make the other choice, even though I basically _promised_ that I knew what I was doing.”

Dipping his chin, Mac seems to be considering this. He’s thinking hard and Riley tries not to overthink his thinking, eyes landing over the back of the couch on what she to this day believes is the ugliest fridge she’s ever seen in her life. Fridges have no business being that color, and she’s pretty sure half the back is held together by Duct tape, and she’s still thinking about the damn fridge when he speaks again.

“Okay there’s… A lot to unpack there, but honestly, first of all I’d say that if it helps, I don’t think he meant it. That it was awesome, and you should do it, I mean.”

Riley makes a face at him, not understanding his point. “Why would he say that if he didn’t mean it?”

“Sure didn’t sound like it when he talked to me, he sounded like he thought it was the opposite of awesome. Jack is…” Mac shakes his head, looking somewhere indistinct with a ruefully fond expression. “I think, with me, and with you, when it comes to our fathers, he has… Jack has a hard time speaking his mind about it, at least to us.”

“ _Jack_ ,” repeats Riley incredulously, raising her eyebrows. “Have a _hard time_ speaking his mind.”

He laughs, just once, softly, but it’s a real laugh, and it breaks some of the tension hanging over the room. Riley is grateful for that. It was getting heavy, hanging over her like a wool blanket.

“I know it sounds hard to believe, but hear me out. Jack doesn’t pull his punches, physically or literally, but when it comes to my father, and yours, I think he gets so worried about crossing a line or seeming like he feels threatened by them that he kind of. Goes hard in the opposite direction.”

As Riley sits there, absorbing what he’s said, Mac shrugs, cheeks turning pink.

“I mean,” he says quickly, “that’s just what I think. I don’t know, but- I don’t think he actually- I think if he said how he really felt about it, without worrying about how it looked, or overriding our ability to make our own decisions, he’d have talked me out of trying to find my dad a long time ago.” Mac studies her for a second, seeming like he’s trying to calculate whether to say something, and erring on the side of speaking freely. “And he’d never have agreed to stay out of it with yours. He’d have run him off the West Coast with a pair of brass knuckles the instant Elwood came back around.”

_I wish he had_. The thought springs unbidden into Riley’s mind and she bites her tongue.

“And what do you…” she tries, not quite able to formulate the question, how to ask if he feels the way she does about that. “How do you- I mean-”

“If he had told me I should stop looking for my dad, that it was just going to hurt me, and that I already had all the family I needed right here, I think I would’ve… I think I would’ve listened to him, and I wouldn’t have gone as far as I did trying to find him. I wouldn't still be looking for him now.” It’s Mac’s turn to glance down at his lap, at fidgeting hands. He swallows visibly before continuing. “And I think Jack knew that too, and that’s why he didn’t, because he didn’t want to overstep or take the choice away from me or… I don’t know. But sometimes… Sometimes I wish he had.”

There it is, the agreement she’d been looking for, and it’s this that makes Riley angry at herself for a whole new reason entirely. Mac’s voice has gone soft in a different way than it was before, and he’s twisting a paperclip of unknown origin between his fingers. This is part of the reason she’s come here today, here of all places, and it’s also part of the reason Riley feels like she shouldn’t have. Like it’s just another selfish decision in a series of selfish decisions.

“I’m sorry,” she says around the lump in her throat. “I shouldn’t have come here and just started dumping all of this on you, it’s not fair, you’ve got your own…” Riley waves her hand abstractly, unable to find the words for what she’s trying to say without saying 'daddy issues' and trivializing this for both of them. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” The response is immediate and sincere. “I don’t know exactly how you feel right now, or exactly what you’re going through but…”

“You get it.” And there it is, the other reason she hadn’t told Jack, hadn’t told Matty, hadn’t told her friend Ella in IT at the Phoenix, anyone but Mac what she wanted to do, what she was thinking of doing. Because she’d needed someone who would understand, someone who would _get_ get sometimes family gets complicated, gets turned inside out and on its head, sometimes the people you’re supposed to be able to run to and rely can turn on you and be the reason you need somewhere safe to run. Mac gets it. That’s the other reason it was him she came to. Riley is overcome with the urge to tell him this, to impress upon her that it wasn’t just an ear she needed, a shoulder, but _him_. “That’s why I… Y’know. Cause you get it, you understand how it can be. With family. With dads.”

There’s a small smile on his face, now, and Mac nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I do.”

For a short time, the conversation rests there. Riley shifts on the couch, turning and scooting over until she’s within reach of Mac, their knees bumping each other. He’s close enough that Riley can feel the light warmth that lets you know another person is beside you. It’s a calming feeling, one that does a lot to still her nerves.

Mac doesn’t move outside of mirroring her adjustment, making room for her on his end of the couch, and he doesn’t speak right away. He’s still messing with the paperclip and Riley watches him for a while, distracted by the shape being formed by his skilled fingers. She can’t tell what it is, or indeed if it’s supposed to be any sort of distinct shape at all, but it’s soothing to watch, some piece of familiarity to cling to amongst the turmoil Riley can’t help but feel she’s invited in.

After a while, one of Mac’s hands closes over the metal wire, crumpling the shape back into an indistinguishable ball of metal, and sighs.

“What are you going to do?” he asks, and Riley stiffens.

“I don’t... I don’t know.”

“Okay, let me try this one,” Mac counters. “What do you _want_ to do?”

“What I want isn’t the only consideration,” says Riley instead of answering the question posed. “It’s- Ending it now, it wouldn’t be right. Not after I already told him we could work on things, already told _everyone_ we were working on things, and that I was sure about this. I can’t just change my mind about that because I _want_ to. He’s not going to be my _dad_ again, and he knows that, so why can’t I just… It should be enough to just make that clear and still let him know me, I mean, he’s doing better. Doesn’t that mean I owe him that much?” She looks searchingly at Mac, who shakes his head.

Whatever it is Riley is expecting to hear him say, what comes out of his mouth after a long stretch of deliberating silence isn’t it.

“You’re a really wonderful person,” he says, and she feels her face heat up. Mac isn’t looking at her, picking at the end of the mutilated paperclip with a thumbnail. He speaks slowly and haltingly, with pauses and awkward tones. It’s clear this isn’t the kind of thing Mac is entirely comfortable expressing, and Riley can’t put it to words herself, what it makes her feel that he’s doing it anyway. “You’re… A _great_ person with a good life, and you did that yourself. You did that in spite of him and it was hard. He doesn’t have any kind of entitlement to any part of that life, no matter how small. Not if you don’t want him to have it. So it _is_ about what you want.”

“Isn’t that just… selfish, though?” By now Riley should really have just accepted the counterargument, taken what she had wanted when she came here - the support, the absolution - and done what she needed to do already. But no, she can’t ever just take the easy way, and so she’s pushing, trying to get Mac to admit that this is terrible, that what she wants to do is immoral and cruel and wrong. Because that’s how she feels, deep in the nauseating pit that’s formed in her gut. “It’s the kind of thing bad people do. They tell someone they’re giving them a second chance and then say never mind and take it away. It’s selfish and ungrateful and… I don’t know if I can live with being the kind of person who can just _do_ that. He wants this too much, it means too much to him.”

Again, a pause. This kind of conversation, the things Mac has been saying to her, the confessions Riley’s been making, they aren’t the people that talk like this. That’s better left to people like Jack and Bozer, people with high emotional intelligence and honesty, the kind of people who will tell you they love you and mean it when all you’ve done is grab them their favorite drink while you were at a coffee shop. People like her and Mac, feral cats with human hearts no one ever taught them how to use, who are never sure how or when to express anything, they aren’t built for this.

It’s clear he’s struggling with finding the right words, and Riley knows the feeling. She doesn’t know how to talk about this either, but she’s trying, they’re both trying, she because she needs him, and he because he loves her enough to be there when she does, and that’s what family is _supposed_ to be like, isn’t it? This is how it’s supposed to feel, fierce and warm and safe like someone lit a hearthfire in her ribcage. Not a fist tangled in her intestines and twisting whenever she gets a text message.

“If it were me would you think the same thing?” is what Mac finally comes up with. “If I find my dad, and we try to fix things, and then it turns out that having him around hurts me, would you say any of that? Would you call me selfish or ungrateful or a bad person for wanting to get out of a situation that’s hurting me?”

“No,” she says, quicker and easier than she’s said anything in days. “Of _course_ not.”

“Then why is it different for you? Because this is hurting you, Ri. You wouldn’t be sitting here hashing this out with me when you already know what you want to do if it wasn’t.”

It’s a damn good point and it cuts to the bone.

“And everything you’ve said,” Mac continues, apparently not finished, “leads me to believe you knew what it was you had to do before you even got here. You just needed somebody to tell you it’s okay to put yourself first, that Elwood lost his right to have his feelings considered here a _long_ time ago. Well, it is, and he did. You don’t owe him anything.”

Riley nods and reaches into her pocket. Her phone is heavier than it should be in her palm, the screen blank and accusing where it lays dormant. She stares at it for a while, heart hammering in her throat, before she unlocks the screen and opens her texting app.

The message is short and to the point. It’s remorseful but firm, and Mac reads it for her before she sends it, then holds her hand tightly in his while she does. Riley’s thumb is shaking over the screen when she navigates to the address book, selecting Elwood’s number and blocking it.

It feels like the worst part of it, not even allowing him the ability to respond where she would see it, but she knows it’s necessary. Elwood hasn’t been below manipulation in the past, and Riley knows that, as hard as this was to do, it will become impossible if she has to continue to explain it to him. If he argued, if he tried to persuade her, that would be it. She knows she’d crumble. So this is the way it has to be.

Once it’s done, Mac gently takes the phone out of her hand, placing it face down on the coffee table, then leaning back. A gentle pull on her shoulder encourages Riley to lean back with him, body curving to land against his, her head tucked under his chin and face pressed against the fabric of his t-shirt. The grip around her is firm and supportive, curled over her back protectively, one of his hands holding her arm. She wants to thank him, for helping her today, for the whole conversation and everything she knows it must have taken out of him to give her what she needed then, but she doesn’t have the words for it. So instead Riley rests her weight against him and listens to the heartbeat she can hear under her ear, louder than the clock on the wall.

Seventy-three beats of Mac’s heart later, she finds the strength to speak.

“Will you come with me when I tell Jack?” Riley’s whisper would’ve been lost if the ambient noise in the room had been a little louder. The collar of Mac’s shirt scuffs her cheek when he shifts, arm tightening around her.

“Of course,” he mutters back, his voice only slightly more raised than hers, nowhere near normal speaking volume.

“Thanks.”

They lapse back into quiet. Riley’s phone buzzes once, on the coffee table, and she flinches a little, squeezing her eyes tight shut. Whoever it is that’s trying to contact her, whether it was to do with her father or not, it can wait. Right now, Riley is exhausted, and she feels like a weight has been lifted off her back, a weight that had been compressing her spine down and down until she felt like she would suffocate, or sink into the ground and never get up again. It’s freeing.

There will be time tomorrow to feel guilt and grief, frustration and shame. There will be time tomorrow for everything else. Right now, though, Riley doesn’t have anywhere to go or anything to do, content to just slouch here on this couch with Mac, her cheek resting over his collarbone and his arm tight around her. They’re a complimentary set, she and Mac, the brother she’d only met not two years ago but nonetheless felt more like family than Elwood ever had. She takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly, letting herself relax until she feels herself floating away, letting go of consciousness and trusting that if something happens, Mac has her.

Sleep comes to Riley slowly, in drifts and eddies. She doesn’t dream.

> _Let the river in_
> 
> _If blood is thicker than water_
> 
> _Then let the river in_


End file.
